Posts by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
(DIR) Post #Az1QWqWX1gCdw8Irui by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-10-09T04:50:51.887531Z
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(DIR) Post #AzPybdWkpkyjJPtxQG by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-10-21T01:02:56.446112Z
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@futurebird yes, I remember it, I was 17.One thing that happened was that for a while some of our cities had many CBD lots where building halted, or where an old building was left derelict, or a building had been demolished but the replacement never started, because a really big property development company (Chase corporation) went under (others did too I think but Chase is what I remember). So there was a bit of urban blight as a consequence.The long-lasting legacy was a whole cohort of investors decided equities were too risky and they would only invest in residential property. This has a) starved our businesses of capital and b) ensured that out of all the Anglosphere property bubbles, ours is the very very worst. The effect of this bias to property cannot be overstated. We have incredibly pro-landlord policies that make renting humiliating, make it near impossible to have security of tenure, with all the social harm that implies. We have governments doing everything they can to keep house prices high and rising. And so home ownership is falling, young people are emigrating, public health and education levels are affected by families moving all the time, blah blah. It's a blight, and governments are scared to do anything about it because the oldies who still own their homes will vote them out if they do.We're literally only just getting over it now, just in time for the next big crash, probably.
(DIR) Post #AzRoIDgA6PO2PxKAYi by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-10-21T22:18:52.151423Z
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I had little lime tree in a pot, which I had nearly given up for dead after I forgot to put frost cloth on it over winter and the leaves went all yellow.Planted it out six weeks ago in one of the beds I had cleared of ivy, a warm and sheltered spot, and not only have those leaves all turned green again but there are lots and lots of shoots. Very pleased. Taking great care to keep it fed and watered now!#gardening
(DIR) Post #AzXzItIzbMBTxnll5M by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-10-24T21:51:49.440804Z
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Bread looking good today.
(DIR) Post #AzelA3BNZD97rxyK12 by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-10-28T04:14:35.270221Z
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A 92.5% threshold for flagging means that a little less often than 1 time in 10, the system will wrongly flag a person as suspicious, and it will be up to a staff member to validate.Please place your bets on the likelihood of someone who probably has a lot of other things to do and isn't paid enough making a correct call.Attn @civillibertynz https://www.thepress.co.nz/business/360868127/foodstuffs-scan-faces-christchurch-stores
(DIR) Post #B05XoLMdamNdVB3JRo by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-11-10T00:09:22.999597Z
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@lightweight not going to make it but you might be interested in Liwan which is a simple, lo fi web analytics platform that's a single Rust binary.
(DIR) Post #B05bhM2R5S5dNlWg4G by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-11-10T03:07:14.868761Z
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@lightweight just that it's very small and simple is all
(DIR) Post #B0TnVDfOfuIC6HvTjU by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-11-21T19:11:16.226371Z
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For the last couple of days, the first line of my web server logs (which are rotated with logrotate) is an enormous binary shit, which breaks log parsing.But I can't tell what's doing it. Could it be logrotate itself? Or Caddy (the web server)? I don't know.
(DIR) Post #B0gQVYwt46M8J2etJA by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2025-11-27T06:47:18.461002Z
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@strypey the reason many local Jews opposed this, including Jewish anti-Zionist groups, is we know that many New Zealanders can't distinguish between Jews and Israelis (or indeed recognise that many Israelis emigrate precisely because of their opposition to the state's policies) and saw this as a stunt that was likely to end badly.
(DIR) Post #B1ta5GhS899D2nHzSy by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T02:14:21.705554Z
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@lightweight closely related and edible weed Fat Hen is growing about 3m away from me right now...
(DIR) Post #B1ta5I1LDgeP8lbO6a by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T02:15:47.708460Z
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@lightweight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenopodium_album
(DIR) Post #B1ta5IgojTpNDP0Vkm by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T02:16:38.274942Z
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@lightweight hmmm maybe not closely related, WP is telling me Good King Henry is classified in another genus these days after DNA studies.
(DIR) Post #B1ta5JIOTlsx5waWK8 by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T02:20:39.750044Z
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@lightweight but anyway good (or bad) news: https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=6803&taxon_id=507134
(DIR) Post #B1tegsUcykfkmxTmxk by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T04:19:54.730084Z
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@lightweight this kind of plant thing is so up my alley, I'm interested in growing it too!
(DIR) Post #B1tf7qsB6uz3aBMCno by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T04:20:48.464213Z
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@lightweight I've just been reading that the seeds need at least 8 weeks of 4degrees C or below to germinate so I'd guess you need alpine locations in NZ to get that.
(DIR) Post #B1thP2aT0gI2kGOfYW by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-03T04:40:56.356973Z
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@lightweight pretty sure I've seen tepary beans for sale here in Chch in an Indian grocer or similar...
(DIR) Post #B23O8UTGoA25o7LBGi by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-07T21:09:23.755767Z
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For a while I've had a project to get back into sustained book reading.I have encountered an unexpected problem. I have been mostly accumulating "to read" books from my online reading, and because of my various interests, the bulk of those books are serious, dense, and depressing. So I've found some aversion in myself to picking up a book because I know I'm going to feel worse after I have read it...Note to self. Henceforth, for every "worthy" downer of book, at least one entertaining one.
(DIR) Post #B23O9yXiUIFpMY81yK by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-07T21:10:20.130335Z
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Of course this may say something about the mismatch between my aspirations/self-image and who I actually am, vanity and snobbery...
(DIR) Post #B2f9uoMVTsPN95KkMa by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-01-22T22:59:27.438662Z
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@davemosk interesting book by W David Marx from the last year or two takes the position this was happening anyway ('Blank Space'), connected with internet but not AI especially
(DIR) Post #B2rpkN1ylo3LSIxHHM by stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz
2026-02-01T04:12:09.001467Z
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@miramarmike in this case it does have to do with the particular person... but beyond that:- people have always treated machines as a kind of oracle, even before LLMs- people have always projected agency and intelligence on to computers, see early experiences with ELIZA onwards- people feel that the computer doesn't judge so the interaction feels lower-risk...- ... while at the same time people are poor judges of actual risks when it comes to computers- LLMs have a "voice" that is co-operative, friendly and supportive by default- LLMs give the impression that they "know" stuff -- they phrase responses as knowledge held by them, rather than (eg) "here is a response generated semi-randomly from your prompt words and a statistical analysis of a training set which may or may not contain relevant data"A large measure of fault falls on the people designing these things. They needn't be engaging, friendly and reinforcing and promote more and more follow-up interactions, but that would not fit the commercial goals. Another measure of fault sits with people who do not understand how they work and who are insufficiently skeptical about [nearly everything], but who tell everyone else about LLMs (eg news media, influencers, ...).I see it as a kind of hack of human psychology akin to how gambling works.